Am not surprised, this was I had expected: Subramanian Swamy on Jayalalithaa's bail plea

Bangalore, Oct 7: As the former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalaithaa's bail plea was rejected on Tuesday in a major setback to her as well as her massive supporters, the happiest person to receive the shocking news was the BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.

While talking to media persons, the visibly glad Swamy said, "Am not surprised,this was I had expected."

On the contrary, senior counsel Ram Jethmalani appearing for Jayalalithaa told the Karnataka High Court pleaded for suspension of the sentence by the Special Court which had sent her to four years in jail.

The "regular practice" was to give bail, Jethmalani told Justice A V Chandrashekhara, who took up the matter which was posted for today by the vacation bench on October 1.

Criticising the judgement of the Special Court in the Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate case, he said assets prior to the period between 1991 and 1996 (when Jayalalithaa was Chief Minister) could not be taken into account.

"Matters in favour of the accused must be treated with equal importance", he said.

The order by Justice A V Chandrashekhara came after Special Public Prosecutor Bhavani Singh told the court he had no objection to granting conditional bail to Jayalalithaa.

In his order pronounced in a packed court room, the judge said there "are no grounds" to give bail to the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and observed that corruption amounts to "violation of human rights" and leads to economic imbalance.

66-year-old Jayalaithaa, who collapsed after hearing the verdict, has been lodged in Parapana Agrahara central prison in Bangalore since September 27.

Earlier in the day, Jayalaithaa's supporters went into celebration mode as one of her lawyers said she had been granted conditional bail.

The court also rejected the pleas for bail by Jayalalithaa's close aide Sasikala and her relatives V N Sudhakaran, disowned foster-son of the former Chief Minister, and Ilavarasi, who have also been sent to four years in jail in the 18-year-old case.

OneIndia News